earthlight

The piece we want is over the Upper Midwest here, associated with a mid/upper level jet streak. The GFS is about 12 hours too late phasing this in to the de-amplifying trough over the Northeast US. The pieces are there with the shortwave cutting underneath the decaying block. However, I'm still big game hunting and my eyes are on that approaching piece and potential phase (same idea is on the ECMWF, albeit carried out differently). With that type of consolidation you'll be talking about a more notable event. If the phase is not a real possibility, you'll be looking at another de-amplifying dis

Personally i’ve already started up the snowblower for my early February blizzard

Unfortunately, I still don’t think that this is nearly enough. Confluent flow and vorticity is still sitting over NJ during the period when we most need height rises and CVA to really be expanding. The window for this to come up here is limited - the height field needs to be much more amplified either by the disturbance itself or a phase of some sort.

I had almost forgotten the name of this godforsaken storm

The GFS and GGEM are literally examples of how the pattern can evolve differently to support a snowier solution.

Don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it

We’ve reached the “84 hour NAM extrapolation” point of the event, which is where things really start to get fun

1/18: Guaranteed cutter 1/19: Bermuda storm 1/20: Suppressed worries, block too strong 1/21: Mixing worries, too amped 1/22: Precip falling apart worries 1/23: 1/24: 1/25: 1/26: Actual event

Here’s our latest:

Are we still worried about mixing??

I wouldn’t focus on this too much. Expect this to change many times in the next 3 days as the dynamical evolution of the storm becomes more clear.

Latest ideas - mostly just some tweaks and the addition of an impact timing bar for NYC

Most of the fgen on the 00z GFS is closer to the 850hPa layer. Soundings have improved quite a bit on the edge of the warm air advection in the mid levels and along what appears to be a northern fringe convergence enhancement. While i’d like to see a deeper DGZ and better lift this is a decent sounding for flake production overall. The same cannot be said for other areas away from the banding. Even where the model is showing precipitation or snow, even area-averaged soundings are showing a less favorable region for snow growth - on this sounding the snow growth region

I can’t wait until they start running a 21z Euro

The synoptic setup on the GEFS and EPS as well as what is being depicted on operational models suggests the room for northward expansion and/or trends is very minimal with this one. Any time you see the expansive PVA to the south and east, you're dealing with a unique situation. This one appears to strongly favor the Mid Atlantic and perhaps even the Southeast states based on current guidance.